With Mitt Romney's recent choice of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as running mate, this campaign is the first in which Catholics are on both major party tickets. Vice President Joe Biden and Ryan are lifelong Catholics who attend Mass regularly and credit the church with shaping their views.

At the same time, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan plans a prime-time appearance next week by giving the benediction at the Republican National Convention after Romney becomes the first Mormon presidential nominee from a major political party. Read more

Sources

• Rachel Zoll in The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Image: NY Daily News

Rachel Zoll writes about religion for Associated Press.

For years, of course, American leadership has been dominated by white Anglo-Saxon protestants. According to the Times' chart, there was not a non-Protestant or non-white Speaker of the House until 1961. The Supreme Court was dominated by white Protestants until 1994, when for the first time five of the nine justices were non-Protestant or non-white. And while there have been candidates from various backgrounds (namely Catholic) for president and vice president for decades, the number of non-whites or non-Protestants who've actually held those two jobs are still very few: Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's vice president, was part Native American; John F. Kennedy was Catholic; Vice President Joe Biden is Catholic; and Barack Obama is African American. (Notably, this is the first year since 1964 that there has been a non-white or non-Protestant on the Republican party ticket.)

Some of these numbers, of course, are simply reflective of politics. George W. Bush, for instance, named three Supreme Court justices, all conservative Catholics, to their post. But surely, some of it is also a sign of progress that we as a country are more accepting of other faiths and other ethnicities. For the first time in history, none of the men at the top of either ticket, Democratic or Republican, are both white and Protestant. Read more

Sources

• Washington Post
• Image: MPRNews

The first was Ryan's own bishop, Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin.

Clearly concerned at attacks on Ryan since he was named Republican contender Mitt Romney's running mate, Bishop Morlino vouched for Ryan's Catholic bona fides in a column on his diocesan website.

Later the bishop said: "I know him very well. He is in regular communication with his bishop . . . . Since others have, I believe, unfairly attacked his reputation, I have to look out for his good name. That is Church law. If someone disagrees with Paul, he is free to do that. But not on the basis of reputation destruction, really calumny."

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York spoke about Ryan on a Catholic radio programme. He said they met at a Lutheran college where Ryan was the commencement speaker and talked for nine minutes on St Thomas Aquinas. "So we really started up a great correspondence and got to know each other very, very well."

The cardinal said he was not trying to be an apologist for Ryan, but praised his "call for financial accountability and restraint and a balanced budget" as well as his "obvious solicitude for the poor".

"So I admire him," Cardinal Dolan said. "He's honest. He's refreshing. Do I agree with everything? No, but . . . I'm anxious to see him in action."

Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila of Denver, Colorado, also wrote a column touching on Ryan's economic policies, noting that his fiscal conservatism had been condemned as anti-Catholic, even by some bishops.

"I am not a policy expert," the archbishop said. "But claims that Paul Ryan's plan run deeply counter to Catholic social teaching are unfounded and unreasonable. Some criticisms are so insidious that one wonders whether the critics have actually read Ryan's plans."

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

National Catholic Register

National Review

Image: Etheldredasplace

Her platform is simple: unlike Romney and his running mate, nuns know what real-life Americans go through because they actually work with low-income people on a regular basis and run programs that need federal funding to succeed. She told The Daily Beast that it's the economy that's hurting Americans, not a so-called "dependence" on social programs. "The problem is not enough jobs and low wages," she said. "Catholic teaching is based on solidarity. Ryan doesn't understand that all decisions need to be made with the common good in mind." Sister Simone for president in 2016, anyone?

The "Nuns on the Bus" tour, which covered nine states in two weeks, further convinced Sister Simone that Ryan must be stopped. "The more we were on the road, the more impassioned we became," she said. "We saw all these low-income communities, all the people who would be affected. By the end, we were fairly nuts about it."

Sister Simone even invited Ryan and Romney to spend a day with her and the poor; unfortunately, neither man has gotten back to her yet. Continue reading

In 1961, William F. Buckley published a critique of Blessed Pope John XXIII's encyclical, Mater et Magistra, Mother and Teacher. Buckley's article was entitled, "Going the rounds in conservative circles: 'Mater, si, Magistra, no.'"

The phrase came from a not-yet converted Garry Wills in a telephone conversation with Buckley. It was the first significant instance of public dissent from the magisterium of the Church by an American public intellectual.

Note the date: 1961. Before the Second Vatican Council. John XXIII's encyclical was not a fruit of the Council. It was based on a long line of Church teachings, rooted in the anthropology and ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas, and explicitly applied to modern social, economic and political circumstances beginning in 1891, with Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum.

The basic threads of Catholic Social teaching were developed further by Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII. All before the Council, all before "dissent" became a phenomenon associated with the Catholic Left.

The teachings from which Buckley then, and Congressman Ryan now, dissent are traditional teachings, rooted deeply in an understanding of the human vocation.

Buckley, of course, would not go as far as Ryan. One has a hard time imagining Buckley heaping praise on Ayn Rand as Paul Ryan has done. Continue reading

Image: The Telegraph

His vice-presidential choice is well-known for his pro-life advocacy and his conservative economic views.

Explaining his pro-life position, Ryan has said: "I cannot believe any official or citizen can still defend the notion that an unborn human being has no rights that an older person is bound to respect."

As for his economic views, he was architect of a federal budget condemned by Catholic bishops as failing a "basic moral test" in that it slashed food assistance to the poor and radically redefined safety net programmes such as Medicare.

Ryan, 42, contended that the poor are hurt more by extreme levels of government debt than by budget reductions. He defended his fiscal positions against critics in a lecture at Jesuit-affiliated Georgetown University last April. He cited Catholic social teaching principles of subsidiarity and solidarity and charged that "government-centred" approaches to poverty have failed.

Paul Ryan has been criticised for the formative influence of the laissez-faire capitalist philosopher Ayn Rand on his economic outlook. However he has publicly renounced Ayn Rand's philosophy. He said: "It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview."

Introducing Ryan as his running mate, Romney declared: "Paul is in public life for all the right reasons — not to advance his personal ambitions but to advance the ideals of freedom and justice; and to increase opportunity and prosperity to people of every class and faith, every age and ethnic background. A faithful Catholic, Paul believes in the worth and dignity of every human life."

Paul Ryan has signed the National Organization of Marriage's pledge to defend marriage as a union of a man and a woman and to seek the appointment of judges who will defend marriage.

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

National Catholic Register

Image: Daily Mail

The "Nuns on the Bus" are focusing on budget cuts proposed by House of Representatives budget committee chair Paul Ryan, a Catholic who has in the past expressed enthusiasm for the views of libertarian author Ayn Rand.

The nuns, a rotating crew of 14 sisters sponsored by the Catholic social justice lobby group Network, say Ryan's plans to cut spending on Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program would harm "people who are already suffering".

In their big, colourful bus, the nuns are attracting rock-band attention, with video crews from CNN, PBS, CBS and documentary makers following their path.

Since the bus tour dates overlap the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' "Fortnight of Freedom", some observers suggest the nuns aim to divert attention from the bishops' campaign.

This campaign, targeted mainly at President Obama's decision requiring most employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control, has been organised around liturgical feasts for martyred defenders of the faith.

It includes prayer vigils, rallies and other events to draw attention to what the bishops see as government attacks on religious freedom.

Independent advocacy groups such as CatholicVote.org and Women Speak For Themselves, have joined the effort with TV ads, videos, Facebook appeals and petition drives.

Sources

• CNS
• Deseret News
• Washington Post
• Nuns on the Bus
• Image: Nuns on the Bus